Washington University enables meal point use at food truck
24 March, 2017
category: Dining
Students on the campus of Washington University can now use points associated with their meal plans to pay for meals at a new campus food truck.
According to a report from Student Life, Washington Dining Services has been mulling the idea of campus food trucks for nearly two years and saw the trucks’ growing popularity as a primary factor in deploying one. The primary goal of the food truck initiative, however, was to choose truck vendors that would accept Washington’s meal points so that all students could participate.
“Food trucks are part of the culture now…We began to look at bringing food trucks to campus, and the most important factor was that every student could participate,” said Paul Schimmele, Dining Services Manager, in a Student Life interview. “If you didn’t have extra cash, you wouldn’t be able to participate. So that meant that the truck would have to take meal points.”
The food truck at Washington is still in its pilot phase, but if the program proves popular and operates successfully dining services would be willing move to deployment on a larger scale to open up new campus dining options for students.
The food truck at Washington, Steak Louie’s, has been a hit thus far raising significant interest from students. The truck has been so popular, in fact, that the wait time for food has actually acted as a deterrent for some as the wait in line has reached anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour during the lunch rush.
Food trucks have been gaining significant steam on campus in recent years and show no signs of slowing down. An increasing number of institutions are recognizing this trend and are incorporating trucks on campus to great effect.
